Hillhouse Quarry Group leadership change: supply and pricing signals for projects
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell
First reported on The Construction Index
30 Second Briefing
Hillhouse Quarry Group, one of Scotland’s largest privately owned aggregates and asphalt producers, has appointed former NATS chief financial officer Alistair Borthwick as chief executive and promoted long-serving commercial director Mark Munro to managing director. The leadership change follows the planned April retirement of managing director Robert McNaughton, who led the family-run business for 18 years as it expanded from an Ayrshire quarry operator into a national group and entered Scotland’s top 100 private companies. For contractors and materials buyers, the move signals continuity in long-term supply relationships and pricing strategy, with added financial discipline from Borthwick’s infrastructure background.
Technical Brief
- Leadership transition formally takes effect with Robert McNaughton’s retirement scheduled for April.
- McNaughton’s tenure spans nearly 20 years in senior roles within the family-owned group.
- Borthwick’s previous role at NATS involved financial control for air traffic at 14 UK airports.
- Munro brings over 25 years’ service at Hillhouse, most recently overseeing commercial strategy and customer contracts.
Our Take
Hillhouse Quarry Group’s presence in the top 100 private companies in Scotland signals that, unlike many of the smaller, single-site operators in our Materials coverage, it has the balance sheet depth to pursue multi-site capital upgrades or acquisitions across Ayrshire and wider Scotland.
Long internal tenures such as Mark Munro’s 25+ years at Hillhouse are relatively uncommon in our 16 recent Materials stories, and typically correlate with smoother delivery of multi-year quarrying and asphalt plant investments because local planning authorities see continuity in counterparties.
Bringing in leadership experience from NATS, which manages air traffic at 14 UK airports, suggests Hillhouse is likely to lean harder into systems, safety and operational control disciplines that are more often seen in regulated infrastructure than in traditional quarry operations.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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